The Children's Blizzard(55)

“Like Papa,” Raina broke in, frowning.

“I’ve never met your papa but I imagine he is stubborn, because his daughter seems to have a streak of it.” Doc Eriksen laughed, but his rueful amusement only highlighted how weary he was, how old; his teeth were yellow, his cheeks hollow, the bags under his eyes as droopy as a hound’s. “Us stubborn men, if we stick it out, if somehow we make this earth do what it should, and not what it wants…Think of the reward. Not in riches, but in satisfaction, in dying knowing you have tamed nature itself. Of knowing your children”—and here Doc Eriksen lay a gnarled but kind hand on Raina’s shoulder—“will have more than you ever dreamed of, because of you.”

Raina smiled and lay her cheek on the old man’s hand, before seeing him to the door. But she didn’t agree with what he said, because she couldn’t imagine having more than her parents did back in Norway—how many stories had she heard about the fun they’d had there surrounded by family, for all the farms were close together in the old country, not separated by one hundred and sixty acres like they were here? Back there, they never wanted for food or clothing; there was always someone to borrow from, hand-me-downs passed from one cousin to another. They were not rich, no—not in the things men value. Still, she knew her mother had been happier there, richer in the things that women know as worthy—sympathy, conversation, community. But a married woman had no choices of her own. A married woman’s future was her husband’s, no matter where she lived.

    What was Raina’s future now?

Mama’s dream of sending her girls to a teaching college so they could at least find a position somewhere other than a country schoolhouse full of poor children who would need nothing more than a cursory education—

Well, that dream was vanishing just as the sun was vanishing outside. After this winter, there would be the usual floods that would mean the usual delay in planting, the rush to harvest before the next winter arrived. How could they save enough? There’d never be enough money for college now, especially since Gerda…

Oh, what was she doing, thinking of college in the face of such loss? But as Raina patted the letter in her apron, the letter that had brought the unfathomable news about her sister, she still couldn’t bring herself to believe it. She had initially longed to rush home to her parents, to comfort them and be comforted. But now, she was afraid.

Afraid that her parents would see into her heart and know she was not the same person she’d been when she left home. Afraid to add to their grief in this way. Afraid to be thrust into the reality that her family was not the same, either—and would never be again.

    Raina couldn’t bear it, she couldn’t hold off her grief any longer; she fell onto a sofa and wept for her sister—and also for herself. Why couldn’t her parents have settled in a city like Omaha or Saint Paul? In a city, she and Gerda could have worked together in a little store, or taken a secretarial course, or taught in a school where the children didn’t fall asleep from exhaustion.

Or where the wrong decision didn’t lead to unimaginable tragedy.

Suddenly she could hear her sister’s voice in her ears, scoffing. Poor Raina, the voice said—but there was warmth in it, love. Such a baby, such a princess. And Raina stopped crying, and she laughed instead as she blew her nose and dried her eyes.

No matter what, Gerda would always be with her; the bond of sisters was eternal. This letter was simply paper and ink, nothing more; her heart knew the real truth of her sister. These words could not change that.

From the bedroom, Anna was calling her name; Raina rose with a sigh, reaching into her pocket. She took the letter—neatly folded, no need to read it again—and went to the kitchen. Opening the door of the woodstove, she threw the letter inside. She did not remain to watch the flames consume it.

Instead, she resolutely went back inside the sickroom to care for Anette.





CHAPTER 26


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ANETTE WAS DREAMING NOW, AGAIN, always. For a girl who had not been given to dreaming before—how could anyone sleep so lightly as to dream, when she was so exhausted every night her sleep was as heavy as a ton of bricks, blotting out any fancies?—she was currently entangled in so many she couldn’t make sense of them.

There was the dream of being yanked out of an ice house and into someone’s arms, a woman’s arms, not Mama’s, but someone else’s. And when she opened her eyes, just once, she saw that she was in Mother Pedersen’s arms, but that couldn’t be possible, because, well—that just couldn’t be possible. And then Mother Pedersen was crying and saying she was sorry, but that, too, could not be. Then the nightmare of fire licking at her hands, devouring them in its fierce, gaping mouth, and she cried and screamed, and maybe someone held her down because she wanted to get up and stab that flaming monster in the eyes, but she couldn’t because she couldn’t move her arms.

Another bout of dreams and fantasies—past, present, future, she had no idea: Fredrik taunting her, telling her to get up, she was a baby, just a girl, a stupid girl, why didn’t she get up and go with him? A recurring sensation of falling from a ledge up in the sky into the very earth itself, the soil rising up to catch her was soft as a feather bed. She fell deep into it, afraid that it would hurt when she finally landed, but she never did, she just kept tumbling down in its pillowy embrace. Teacher calling her name over and over, sternly, like Anette had done something bad. And her slate! Her pail! Where were they? She patted her chest, felt for the slate—hadn’t she wrapped her shawl over it?